Framingham: Healey talks women's rights with voters

FRAMINGHAM - Attorney General candidate Maura Healey decried two recent Supreme Court decisions as being blows to womenís rights, as she met with voters in Framingham Wednesday.

"Iím really upset about what happened the last couple weeks," Healey said, referring to the high court striking down the Massachusetts abortion clinic buffer zone law and ruling in the Hobby Lobby case that certain corporations with religious objections do not need to provide birth control coverage for employees.

"These are matters of social and economic justice to me," Healey said during her sit-down with a small group of voters at Panache Coffee on Rte. 9.

Healey, who is running against Warren Tolman in the Democratic primary on Sept. 9, held the invitation-only campaign event to discuss the two rulings with local activists.

Former chief of civil rights in the state attorney generalís office, she helped draw up, enforce and defend the 35-foot buffer-zone law. She said the two Supreme Court decisions affect not only womenís civil rights, but also their safety, pocketbooks and access to health care.

Healey urged the group of mostly all women, which included Democratic delegates and Town Meeting members, to fight for womenís rights and "be part of the advocacy."

"I hope that people really are galvanized by these decisions," she said.

Framingham Democrat Joan Rastani, sitting across from Healey, said she knows everyone has to "fight the battle" for themselves and others.

She recalled the challenges she has faced as a woman over the years, including when she got married and added her husband onto her credit card account to get him a card, too.

The next bill came in her husbandís name.

"I wrote to the CEO at Sears-Roebuck in Chicago," Rastani said, recalling her outrage at the time. "This is not 1930, this is 1974."

Healey said the fight for womenís rights continues generation after generation even though women are often the breadwinners of their families.

She said she worries the Hobby Lobby court ruling for closely-held businesses opens the door to large, billion-dollar corporations denying their employees health care coverage for contraceptives under the "guise of religious freedom."

She said she hopes the Legislature swiftly passes and Gov. Deval Patrick signs legislation to replace the stricken down buffer law to protect women going into abortion clinics.

She said the bill is "a good start" and really about access to health care.

Danielle Ameden can be reached at 508-626-4416 or dameden@wickedlocal.com. Follow her on Twitter @damedenMW.